[Welcome to the
Born Today series, where each month I highlight the
most significant album releases of said month, with
a little help from the Rolling Stone 500. Where info
is available, the most recent and highest fidelity
versions (not always the same thing) are listed.
Since it's 2012, we'll be celebrating the records
that came out on the second year of each decade.
It's a good excuse to bust out that 180-gram slab of
vinyl you haven't even opened yet.]

Backstabbers,
The O'Jays (1972, day of month unknown)

The titanic impact
of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, released
the previous year, can be heard in this classic of
Philly soul. Darker, harder, but with an assured
ease, the album tackles serious themes while making
you want to shake your booty. Perhaps the definitive
document of the soul/funk sound coming out of the
streets of Philadelphia, and it sounds good on a
scorching hot summer day. The album was digitally
remastered for standard CD in 2011 by Big Break
Records with extra tracks.

Lifted Or the
Story Is In the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, Bright Eyes (August 13, 2002)

The fragile, shaky,
and quite possibly whiny (depending on your level
of tolerance) voice of Conor Oberst puts this
spoiled brat and his band (servants) on the map, and
for good reason. It's the real emo of the early
2000s. Accept no substitutes (I'm talking about crap
like Dashboard Confessional). Available on… CD.

Turn On the
Bright Lights,
Interpol (August 19, 2002)

Speaking of emo, the
real emo, the scary emo, check out "NYC" (or "New
York Cares"), the ultimate nihilistic ode to the
aimlessness of the New York subway system, or a "porno", as Ian Curtis reincarnated (aka Paul Banks)
so eloquently put it. It's a vision of NYC by those
who live there: a godless, despairing, make it or
break it, but mostly the latter, vision of running
and never finding, never seeing above the top floor,
with lights on at 4AM, never seeing beyond the next
stop, but desperately, suicidal-ly wishing the next
stop was the one, the real destination. And that's
only the third song. Good grief.

Kill the
Moonlight,
Spoon (August 20, 2002)

Despite their
underachieving utilitarian name, Spoon were not just
another anemic, boring, precious, self-conscious,
pretentious, slovenly, privileged, whiny (sorry
Conor), Pitchfork-approved indie band full of wusses
who suck 24 hours a day. No, they were better than
that. They were rock and roll. They were good, but
they didn't try too hard to be something other than
what they were. The first couple songs sound
(purposely) like Doors' outtakes, and "Don't Let It
Get You Down" cleverly pays homage to Rubber Soul
era mixes, with the voice in the left speaker
and the band in the right (stereo back then: instead
of one mono speaker, we get two mono speakers!). But
their nostalgia is a source of inspiration, of
looking forward, of being free to do whatever they
feel like at that exact moment, rather than an
excuse for sucking. Today seems to be a new era in
which bands are more interested in skinny jeans and
pastel colors and looking like wusses who suck than
making music that makes people feel good.

A Rush of
Blood to the Head,
Coldplay (August 26, 2002)

Shrewd businessmen as
they are, Coldplay noticed a niche left empty by
Radiohead's seemingly suicidal journey into an
artistically uncompromising forest of prophetic
obedience and trapdoors of genius they couldn't find
their way out of. That niche, previously occupied by
The Bends and OK Computer, was the
realization that sadness can be pretty. And boy, did
Coldplay exploit it. Just listen to the guitar tone
in the second half of the first track. It sounds
like stars. Who cares what the lyrics are about;
sometimes the texture is all you need. While many,
perhaps most, consider this to be their peak; I
personally think they improved with every album.
Yes, this was them at their best as human beings.
But when Brian Eno stepped into the picture in the
latter half of the decade, the heavens became their
permanent domain; they entered the realm of divine
inspiration. A Rush of Blood was just the
departure point. Speaking of looking at the stars,
it's a hot August night, and I have nothing better
to do…